Stick Your English Grit Up Your Ar*e

Nobody knows if Martin Taylor intended to go over the top and plough straight into the shin of the Crozillian striker, and unless Eduardo called Taylor a name prior to the incident and then the Brum defender goes on to write a book, then nobody will ever know.

But malicious or not, it still doesn't excuse this awful tackle.

Whilst Taylor may be feeling bad this morning (not as bad as Eduardo I can assure you) the fact of the matter is, that this whole situation was Martin Taylor's doing, it was completely avoidable and he should be held accountable. As Arseblogger quite rightly stated in today's edition of Arseblog, surely there is something wrong in the system when a petulant slap from former Gooner, Jeremie Alliadiere on Liverpool's Mascherano (who got away with the self same act might I add) warrants the same length of ban as a despicable tackle that could ultimately cost a man his extremely promising career.

As Tim pointed out earlier in the day, this Premier League season has been plagued with two footed tackles, indeed, our own Denilson was culpable of such a cowardly act earlier this season, and was rightly chastised by Arsenal fans. However, it was always likely that it was going to take such a horrible injury as Eduardo's before people started to pay attention, and even now that's still not happening.

Every pundit in the land seeks to take the moral high ground when such a dangerous tackle is made, demanding that these reckless & despicable challenges be ousted from our game, yet when someone actually connects with one of these flying lunges and causes serious injury to players like Eduardo, Jimmy Bullard or Abou Diaby, the self same pundits jumps to the defence of the culprits claiming 'they're not that type of player' or 'it was clumsy rather than anything else'.

Bullshit.

After a good nights sleep, I'd be fairly certain that Martin Taylor never leapt into that tackle hoping to get the outcome he got, but I'd be willing to wage a pound or two that the words of his manager's pre-match talk were still ringing in his ears telling him to get stuck into the Arsenal players, rough them up a bit a knock them out of their stride. Did he mean to shatter the ankle of Eduardo? no. Was it his intention to, in the words of Sam Allardyce, get amongst them? Most certainly so.

Those of you who disagree have to wonder how much force and effort you have to put into a tackle for such an injury to occur.

We spoke, at length, a year or two ago about football teams playing 'anti-football', the act of stopping teams from playing football by enforcing negative tactics in the hoping of securing a draw or even the possibility of snatching three points with a break-a-way goal. While the use of such tactics resulted in ugly, frustrating and boring football matches, it could be understood from the perspective of the smaller teams to whom which every point was vital, but the practise of 'anti-football' has now manifested itself and has a much more dark and sinister side.

Kicking players to knock them out of their stride is unacceptable, it goes against the spirit of the game and, as was proved yesterday, can be dangerous to not only players limbs, but also their livelihood.

So to all those people who accuse Arsene and Arsenal of whinging about not liking it rough, if this is what you call true English grit.........then you can stick it up your arse..

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Your Comments (oldest first)

Well said. However no matter how you look at it, the challenge was deliberate & his intention was to hurt Eduardo. You're probably 100% correct that he wanted to show Eduardo he wasn't going to have an easy afternoon etc, but by carrying through that challenge he HAS RUINED a guys career. Even if Eduardo is lucky enough to get back to football (which is seriously doubtful), he will never ever be the same player again, you can gurantee that. What I find amazing is that he hasn't even apologised publicly, he is nothing more than a coward & he doesn't deserve such a rewarding career. As for that no mark Kelly to come out today stating it shouldn't have even been a sending off & that Taylor slide in one footed keeping it on the ground the whole time is just a complete disgrace!!

I've just posted a similar comment on the forum AG. Kelly remarks that his slides across the ground, when the pictures show quite clearly there is no substantial weight from Taylor on the grass. Indeed such is the force of the challenge Taylor flies into the air after making contact.

In my opinion, the punishment should be that Taylor is banned until Eduardo has recovered and is playing again, it's messed up, Adriano was recently considered for a 500+ day ban for head butting someone!

What you have to remember here guys is, yes it was terrible tackle, but if eduardo's foot hadn't planted on the floor he would not of broken his leg. There's always mistimed challenges in games, often as bad as taylors, but if your foot isn't on the floor you won't break your leg and are unlikely to pick up any kind of injury. Talk of taylor to be banned until eduardo is fit etc is ridiculas, if you make an example of him, then you have to be consistent and ban anyone who mistimes a challenge and injures someone for the same time, we'd end up with no players left in the league. Players are bound to mistime challenges, sadly this time it was a bad one.

What football here fails to understand is how much it will benefit from taking the reckless violence out of the game. Players will have to learn to tackle properly and at the right time. Flair players, which England is as capable of producing as any other nation, will be allowed to develop as opposed to the muscular thugs which we seem to have convinced ourselves are all we are good at producing. Yet we persist in this Luddite belief that football will become a non contact sport if we ban reckless challenges. Having scanned a fair amount of the media this morning it doesn't look as though this is a lesson likely to be learned anytime soon. You are still more likely to be scorned for being soft than feted for your artistry.

So what are you suggesting Mike, that Eduardo was at fault for having his foot on the floor? The he needs to learn to run with both feet off the floor at the same time? At the end of the day, nobody should mistime a tackle to such an extent that he causes someones leg to break, and if they do. then they obviously aren't good enough to play at this level.

To pass it off as just a mistimed challenge isn't good enough. This covers a multitude of sins. This piece from the Poll article spells out what should be happening.
"The UEFA guidelines are clear and specific and are reinforced to referees twice a year. They remind referees that they need to take into consideration:
The element of intent or malice.
The speed of the player's action — the intensity of the challenge.
The tackler's chance of playing the ball.
The tackler endangering the safety of the opponent.
It is the final point which is stressed as there is a need to eliminate challenges where a player gives no consideration to the safety of an opponent. A player who commits himself to a challenge, who is unable to pull out of it, out of control and does so at speed, has no thought for the possible consequences and safety of his 'victim'. "
It is this thought that we have to impress in players minds - can I control this tackle sufficiently to minimise risk to the other player. At present this doesn't even occur to players at far too many clubs. We have to put this into players minds - even if lengthy bans are what it takes to drive the message home.

I'm not taking away from the dreadfulness of the tackle rocky, nor am i blaming eduardo. I'm merely saying that tackles of this nature happen a lot in our league, it's the nature of the english game it's always been this way. The point about if eduardo's foot on the floor is there only because the injury wouldn't of happened if his foot hadn't been, you see players walk away from challenges like this all the time, he was unfortunate to get hit at the exact time his foot was fully planted on the floor, is what i'm saying.

It's only part of the English game because we allow it to be. There's nothing in the rules that says tackles should be made regardless of the consequence. The problem isn't that Eduardos foot was on the floor. It is that Taylors wasn't.

"It's the nature of the English game" Exactly Mike, and that is also the reason the national team is *****, it's also the reason we don't produce as many technically gifted players as we should, and also the reason the players in our league suffer the worst injuries. Do you think our league is as good as it is because of "The nature of the English game"? Is it *********, it's because of the quality and technical ability of those johnny foreigners who "plague" our game.

I'm not applauding these challenges mate, but if you ban taylor for say the rest of the season, in order to be consistent you'd need to ban at least 50 players in the league. I remember Bentnar making an identical challenge on AJ at goodison, the fact AJ didn't get injured means everyone forgets and Arsene didn't see it, would you like Bentnar to be banned for the rest of the season?

When did I say Taylor should be banned for the rest of the season? I said he should be made accountable for his actions, and a 3 game ban is not sufficient. Bendtner & Denilson's tackle were a disgrace and they should have also faced lengthy bans, until you start dishing out retrospective cards then we'll never see the end of this awful practise.

It depends how determined to are to eradicate reckless challenges. If it takes lengthy bans to do so all well and good. If as many as 50 are banned in a season then numbers 11 to 50 must be incredibly stupid players and best left off the pitch in that case.

My original comment was actually directed at Jon, and from what I'd read on here over the last few days people wanted him banned from anywhere to 10 games to life. You can't punish someone more severly than an other for identical incidents, just because the lad got injured. Hope he recovers quickly and fully, destroyed us at goodison seems a good player.

You don't think that serving a lengthy ban is a good punishment? Rio Ferdinand suffered a massive ban because he was late for a ***** test.......stupid thing to do. The best case scenario yesterday was that Taylor was stupid, possibly ended a players career yet only serves a 3 match ban? How is that fair?

"It was harsh Taylor being sent off. Tiny has gone in and it wasn't a malicious tackle and the reason the ref has sent him off is because he has seen Eduardo has broken his leg. I don't think you can send a player off for that. That's football. It can happen. It is an accident. He didn't go in two-footed. He didn't lunge. He didn't dive in" - Stephen Kelly
This ******* Kelly thinks the referee favoured us by sending off Taylor. Yeh, the ref favoured us by giving you 1 instead of 2 f*****g penalties to win the game!

Getting 'amongst Arsenal' is a fantastic tactic, in my opinion. When teams play a little rough against teams with the ability of Arsenal, Arsenal are bound to make mistakes. That was the intention of Martin Taylor. He might have got his tackle horribly wrong and ended up in a huge controversey but 'roughing you up' is perfectly justified. Of course, some of you won't agree with me but that's your opinion and that was mine.

I don't think the length of a ban should have anything to do with the injury sustained at the end no. If two players make the same challenge, one breaks someones leg the other doesn't. They can't be treated differently.

Taylor was obviously told in the dressing room to show Eduardo that he would have a rough day, obviously he didnt mean to smash his ankle, but if he wasn't told that in the dressing room then he would have stayed on his feet and jokeyed Eduardo, but he decided to dive in and now the poor lads career is in doubt. I'm completly with the Arsenal fans on this, English football has this reputation of being rough, and we seem to pride ourselves on it, if we didnt have all these foriegners who are 'so bad for our game' then the England team would actually be labelled a disgrace by the rest of the world for smashing people to pieces. Something needs to be done about it all.

If half the players in the league are suspended for the season, who cares? If it helps to eradicate these sort of tackles, then it can only be a good thing. (BTW, it's 1-0 to us! Drogba, get in there!)

Aamir - If your only way of winning a football match is to "rough people up" then that team is not good enough. Plain and simple. And the quality of English players will never improve as long as they are allowed to compensation for their lack of talent with brute force.

Look at Blackburn. They 'rough people up' and it works wonders for them most of the time. I think too much has been made of yesterday. WHile I am very sorry for Eduardo and hope makes a quick and full recovery, I don't think anything should be done to try and stop these tackles as they, thankfully, very rarely go wrong.

Can't believe what you're saying Aamir - 'too much has been made of yesterday'? Depends which part of yesterday you're talking about. I for one do NOT think there's been enough fair debate about how we should limit/punish illegal/malicious/reckless tackles to protect the players and keep the game clean.

I've had enough of this 'what goes around comes around' ****. We did condemn OUR Eboue, Denilson and Bendtner for acting dangerously. Fair enough. The challenge on Nani was one of those, but that doesn't even begin to compare with what Eduardo's subjected to.

Before any one of you try to say they're 'the same kind of tackles', do go looking for the video/photos of Eduardo's horrendous injury that made so many of us feel physically sick and come back and tell us they're the same.

Anyone who thinks Gallas' nothing flick, which didn't have enough force to even knock Nani out of his stride as he got upfrom the ground, is comparable to Taylor's tackle has the brainpower of a scrotum and his/ her opinion is instantly dismissable by virtue.

Aamir, if your argument holds water, Blackburn would have been champions year in year out. English football is fast becoming the most brutal in Europe. Jimmy Bullard, Abou Diaby, Petr Cech could have had their career ended prematurely here. No it's Eduardo. Not to mention Alf-Inge Haaland's career was ended by Roy Keane's horrendous tackle. People like you still have the gut to come here & endorse these acts of violent. Very soon no technically gifted players would want to risk their limbs & life playing here & you will have what you wished for, Blackburn being champions every year!

Actually, I don't wih for Balckburn to be Champs every year. I'm not endorsing these tackles. I'm endorsing this style of play which, sadly, (rarely) ends up in this situation. Gooner_vin, my opinion would be the same if it was Torres as I know this is something which sadly happens sometimes but very rarely.

I think nobody, ABSOLUTELY NOBODY, deserves anything like what Eduardo's having to put up with. Not even Robbie Savage, not any human being. BTW, plane crashes happen much less frequently than car crashes. Does that mean we don't be as careful as we possibly can about flights and improve its safety? Not any low frequency would make it right for me. It's simply not a matter of degrees. It's people's bodies, people's well-being, people's career we're talking about. Oh, and innocent people at that.

Opposition fans on here spouting off are clearly idiots. When a player regardless of which country they come from or which premier league team they play for is seriously injured because of a thuggish assault then there needs to be serious consequences for that person. Quite rightly the FA actually took action against Ben Thatcher for his assault on Pedro Mendes last season, but judging by some of the comments on this & other threads Thatcher was perfectly entitled to smash his forearm into Mendes head 'to let him know he was behind him'. It's pathetic & in that instance the FA actually stood up & took action despite the fact the ref had already taken action in the game itself. Man City also took immediate action by suspending Thatcher themselves & giving him the maximum fine they could, however Birmingham are already backing a player that everyone can see is completely guilty & no doubt the FA will go back to hiding behind their rule book.

a defender only tries to win the ball. but how can yu win the ball when yu show ur studs. and then how can yu put so much force in ur tackle that yu go on to break the striker's leg. who goes so hard for the ball? if he had connected with the ball, the ball would have gone flat too. his intension was not to break Eduardo, but his intension was clearly to hurt him, which is why he went so hard with his studs showing. the FA should change it's ******** rules. when video evidence is there, use it, and this time please take some serious action so that no one ever suffers something so horrific again..

Exactly WHY can't a ban for an injurious unfair tackle be penalised more heavily? And WHY can't Martin Taylor be the one the FA finally tries to make an example of? If a player gets yellow or red carded for a dangerous tackle and there is no damage, end of story. But if a player is badly injured as a result they should be able to tack on more matches to the suspension, based on a hearing- I'm sure because of Taylor's reputation and record, his ban would not be too long, not that anybody would miss him anyway.

Ashburton Gooner, there was a big difference between Thatcher and Taylor. Thatcher had no chance of winning the ball and didn't even try to. Taylor tried to win the ball and unfortunately hurt his opponent in the process.

"Aamir are you so sure (a) Taylor had a 100% clear conscience?" Needless to say, I can't be completely sure as I'm not Martin Taylor. He probably did set out to let Eduardo 'know he was there'. Personally, I find nothing wrong with that. "Regardless of intent, we've said 100 times and I'll say it again because it's serious: when it comes to such a horrendous injury, intent is totally irrelevant." I don't think intent is irrelavant. I don't believe Taylor went in with any intent at all and 99 times out of 100, Eduardo wouldn't have got the horrendeous injury. "Without the intent, if he was so reckless or careless, the guy deserves to be punished as well." Yes, he does deserve to be punished but not because of intent (which I don't believe was there) but because it was a bad tackle which deserved a red card. And can I just add, my comments don't mean I don't wish Eduardo a quick and speedy recovery.

And nobody questioned your well wishes, which are appreciated all the same. I'm glad we agreed on (b), which IMHO could have been the case, I might be wrong, but we can't prove unless Taylor tells us what went through his mind. But the degree of that terrible 'carelessness' was just far too outrageous, and outcome far too serious, to be punished with a regular 3-match ban that a red card brings. And it's also related to (c) if a professional defender can be so 'careless' that he completely mistimes the tackle when in a totally not dangerous area of the pitch when the striker's not even running in full speed, he's terribly poor for the Premier League, or even a pro. We can agree to disagree on this particular terrible case. But what we're concerned as a broader issue is that this kind of recklessness and sometimes malice is becoming more common in the game. That's all I'm saying.

Rocky's article sums it up nicely. The only way we might start ridding ourselves of murderous tackles is proper punishment with video hindsight. I fully support the art of good tackling but it has nothing to do with the mindset of 'sticking it to them' or kicking people.

Aamir, there is no difference between the actions of Taylor or Thatcher. Only someone completely biased like yourself would even suggest that Taylor was looking to win the ball. The ball was on the ground, Taylor's leg was a foot off the ground & nowhere near the ball so how you've come to that conclusion is beyond me. His mindset was there for all to see, he wanted to take Eduardo out, not in the manner he actually did but he still wanted to give him a kick. Thatcher could have argued (& probably did) that he put his arm up to protect his face as he ran into Mendes full pelt, however its easy for anyone to see what his intention was just as its plain what Taylor's intention was. The guy should be banned for the rest of the season as a bare minimum. The fact that Taylor can call on numerous people to say what a nice guy he is & that he would never hurt anyone is completely irrelevant. He did hurt someone so their argument would be futile!!

Funny lot some football supporters. It seems we are usually too soft relying on 'pretty' football yet if we get stuck in as we are told we must do then we end up with other fans here squealing like an indignant motorist caught for speeding that we are playing it physical. Solution? - simple - ban ALL reckless challenges. Any tackle made without a better than 50-50 chance of getting the ball and/or without regard for the safety of the player in possession is a mandatory red card. I'll take that - I am sure we can get by without them but many other teams would then have to adapt to playing technical football. And that is just the way it should be.

MFC you *****. Can you and the rest of the Arsenal-foreigner-hating bunch make up their minds? Are we a bunch of fannies that don't like to be roughed or are we a bunch of thugs that receive as much as we give? I am sure you one of those who think the "tackle" was a yellow only and Aliadiere's bitc(h) slap on Mascherano deserves the same punishment as the "clumsy" Taylor.

"Only someone completely biased like yourself would even suggest that Taylor was looking to win the ball." Why would I be biased? I hate din't like Birmingham City. "Taylor's leg was a foot off the ground." Are you trying to tell me Eduardo's ankle is one foot of the ground? He must be taller than Peter Crouch!

Aamir, Taylor's foot (studs up) went almost a foot off the ground, made first contact with (actually hitting hard) Eduardo on his shin (not ankle), the contact ended around his ankle, breaking his fibula and dislocated his ankle joint in the process. He obviously doesn't have to be taller than Peter Crouch for that to happen. You can easily look at the video/photos again.

I thought I'd just give it a rest, but couldn't resist whem Arseblogger managed this, seems like 2 years on after Abou Diaby's serious injury, the football world is still the same, and Arsene and we are wasting our breath once again: http://arseblog.com/WP/2008/02/26/i-agree-with-james-lawton-more-on-gallas/

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